nted to us,
Solon, they are no better than the tales of children. In the first place
you remember a single deluge only, but there were many previous ones; in
the next place, you do not know that there formerly dwelt in your land
the fairest and noblest race of men which ever lived, and that you and
your whole city are descended from a small seed or remnant of them which
survived. And this was unknown to you, because, for many generations,
the survivors of that destruction died, leaving no written word. For
there was a time, Solon, before the great deluge of all, when the city
which now is Athens was first in war and in every way the best governed
of all cities, is said to have performed the noblest deeds and to have
had the fairest constitution of any of which tradition tells, under the
face of heaven. Solon marvelled at his words, and earnestly requested
the priests to inform him exactly and in order about these former
citizens. You are welcome to hear about them, Solon, said the priest,
both for your own sake and for that of your city, and above all, for the
sake of the goddess who is the common patron and parent and educator
of both our cities. She founded your city a thousand years before
ours (Observe that Plato gives the same date (9000 years ago) for the
foundation of Athens and for the repulse of the invasion from Atlantis
(Crit.).), receiving from the Earth and Hephaestus the seed of your
race, and afterwards she founded ours, of which the constitution is
recorded in our sacred registers to be 8000 years old. As touching your
citizens of 9000 years ago, I will briefly inform you of their laws and
of their most famous action; the exact particulars of the whole we will
hereafter go through at our leisure in the sacred registers themselves.
If you compare these very laws with ours you will find that many of
ours are the counterpart of yours as they were in the olden time. In the
first place, there is the caste of priests, which is separated from all
the others; next, there are the artificers, who ply their several
crafts by themselves and do not intermix; and also there is the class
of shepherds and of hunters, as well as that of husbandmen; and you will
observe, too, that the warriors in Egypt are distinct from all the other
classes, and are commanded by the law to devote themselves solely to
military pursuits; moreover, the weapons which they carry are shields
and spears, a style of equipment which the goddess tau